Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas!


I hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas!  Here's the Christmas card I designed for us this year... sorry I couldn't send it to each and everyone of you... so I hope this will do!

I'll be off the grid for the next week, enjoying a little break with family and friends!


Have a happy New Year!
Photobucket

all i want for christmas...

... Well, I just finished my Christmas shopping tonight, yes if you're thinking, "wow, that's pretty last minute Blair," well yes my dear readers it is! But I have good reasons for it... the first is that I've been swamped with orders for my other business Joie de Vie, and second is that more often than not my most brilliant ideas come in the final 20 minutes before Target closes.  Maybe it's the thrill of knowing I'm racing the clock, but I can honestly spend the next 12 months thinking up gifts for my loved ones for Christmas 2011 {wow, 2011's around the corner}, and I most likely will still need that 4th quarter shopping to come up with some gems.

Anyhow, I know lots of bloggers create Holiday shopping guides well before Christmas eve, but I am not them and even though I've been thinking about this post for a few weeks, I thought what the heck it'd be fun to share my "wish list/favorites" from 2010.  If Christmas were all about shopping for myself, which it so is not, I would spoil myself with these fun things, but Christmas isn't about these things or me, but just because... I'll go ahead and share a few of my favorite things. =)



These dern {yes I said dern} baked goodies continue to elude me, I can't seem to master them, so why wouldn't I want a book full of inspiring photos, tips, and tricks to try and master these puppies!




:: the Ford Edge ::
A new crossover to help with lugging my props and other various business things to and from events, and hey maybe one day soon it'll come in handy for driving around a little one or two.....

Hey! wait a second, Christmas came early and I am the proud new owner of this very Ford Edge as of a few weeks ago! And the people rejoice... or maybe just me...


:: a super cute, super girly workspace ::
 No description necessary, now if only I can remember where I stumbled upon this photo in the blogosphere....



Now this one's really a gift to my stand mixer, not me, I would just gladly reap the benefits of seeing if ingredients were stuck to the sides, would love the measurements on the side, and oh my gosh there's a lid!  Because goodness knows I... I mean my stand mixer... 
who am I kidding, I can't stand using saranwrap!




:: silicon scraper blade ::
This would be SO handy, I can only dream of a day baking where I don't have to flip up my stand mixer to scrape down the sides like 5 times... hmmm that'd be so nice!





......and the creme de la creme.....



:: the ever amazing iPad 2 ::
Yeah, you read right the iPad 2, not this one, but the next one... my pops and brother talked me off the ledge of jumping to buy this generation for business purposes.  They convinced me to wait for the second generation which most are hoping will be announced by Mr. Jobs in January... PLEASE!
This would make client presentations so seamless, I can't wait =)


   Well that concludes this tour of my favorite things from this past year... by now most of you probably have visions of sugar plums dancing in your heads... I guess I should hurry up and get to bed too!

And to all a good night!

Saturday, December 18, 2010

{inspiration} black, gold, & white wedding

This week was our floral meeting for my upcoming January Bride's wedding... I love when we do the floral meeting because I believe that the floral design elements play a huge role in communicating what the overall personality of a wedding will be.  In the case of this wedding it will be a sleek black, white and gold affair with elements of timeless glamour... with some hints of the show Mad Men to further communicate this wedding vibe.

After the meeting I pulled together a lot of the eye candy the bride, her mom, and I have been sifting through and here's what I've put together!



Just to give you a little bit more of a sneak peek at this wedding I'll share with you the wedding invites, which were created by my sister business Joie de Vie Paperie.  They're keeping the event primarily black and white with touches of gold, so we did the same for the invites.



 The monogram tag shape was a last minute change up, we had originally planned to use a circle shape, and then I realized this bracketed frame die shape would be far more swanky... and then their monogram was stamped onto it.... I just love the way the gold pops off the black!


And here's the whole suite laid out... sorry these photos are just from my digital camera right after production.... I really need to have them professionally shot to do them justice!
Their invites were initially inspired by Kristina's invites {of Lovely Morning and 100 Layer Cake}... but we made some modifications and voila!

Now I don't want to spill all the details about the event, but I really am falling hard for this wedding style... the floral designer said it best the other day...

"I seem to fall in love with the wedding I'm currently working on"

.... and I am falling hard for this one!

:: :: photo credits :: :: left to right, top to bottom
{2, 5-6, 8, 10-14,} Jl designs  
{16} Ikea